A Day at the Bar
by ThatBoxThere
Summary: Alfred's a regular at the bar. But he doesn't drink. So he spends his time talking to the bartender. Then, the old two leave and a new face shows itself.


Alfred never really liked drinking.

Beer tasted weird in his mouth and wine just tasted like more acid-y juice. And, I mean, what was the point of drinking if alcohol never really seemed to affect you? That was one of the things Alfred never really got, he just… _couldn't_ get drunk, no matter how hard he drank.

When Alfred's friends found out about, of course, they used it to their advantage. Alfred was their chauffer. As much as it sounds like they were 'using' Alfred, Alfred really didn't mind it. He preferred using up a little gas and a little of his time driving his friends homes to finding his friends naked on the streets and in his home the next day.

And while his friends were busy drinking it up at the bar, he hung around talking to some of the more sober people there, which usually ended up being the bartender. Soon enough, he made close friends with him.

So, when Alfred came into the bar with his friends and didn't find the regular bartender there, he was a little confused.

"Oh, so, hey, where's Antonio?" Alfred walked up and sat down at the bar right in front of the bartender.

"Hm, are you talking to me?" The bartender turned towards Alfred. "Well, Antonio apparently won some sort of million dollar lottery and said that he was moving back to Spain. It seems that he swept up Lovino with him."

"Huh. Well, that's too bad, Antonio was pretty cool, Lovino was kinda-" Alfred pause mid-thought. "Actually, scratch that, Lovi was kind of a jerk."

"So, do you regularly come here?" The bartender asked Alfred, already setting up a few glasses.

"Eh, I guess you could say that…" Alfred glanced over at his friends behind him.

"Would you like a glass? Of course you would," the bartender pour out a mug of beer for Alfred which Alfred pushed away.

"I don't drink, but could you pour out a few more for my friends back there?" Alfred jabbed his thumb at the group already starting to drink it up.

The bartender look confused, "you come to a bar, yet you don't drink?"

"Kind of a long story, but, yeah, that pretty much sums it up," Alfred nodded.

The bartender still didn't quite understand, but started pouring more drinks anyways. Alfred took a good look at the bartender. Bleach blond hair, green eyes and exceptionally… big eyebrows.

"Hey, what's your name, anyways?" Alfred asked the bartender.

"Do you usually talk this much? And my name is Arthur," the bartender replied. "Now, what's yours, lad?"

"Alfred," Alfred replied simply. "Hey, what shifts do you work here?"

"Why would someone like you want to know?" Arthur said.

Alfred smiled up at Arthur. "I wanna get to know you better!"

Arthur rolled his eyes, but answered the original question anyways. "Thursday to Monday, three until seven."

"Three till eight, huh?" Alfred thought about it for a minute.

"When does Alfred & Company usually come in?" Arthur asked, stopping occasionally to serve some customers but mainly paying attention to Alfred.

"Uhhh… Always the weekends, so I'll see you then, and occasionally on Mondays, like today," Alfred thought about it for a moment. "We usually come in at around five and I usually haul their butts back home at around eleven."

Arthur processed that for a little bit. "So I guess I'll see you on the majority of my shifts, how unfortunate."

Alfred either didn't hear the last part of Arthur's sentence or just completely ignored it. "So can we get past the boring stuff now? I wanna know more about you!"

"Such as?" Arthur asked.

"Well, just general stuff! How old are you? Where do you come from? What are your hobbies? What are your dreams? What's your favorite color?" Alfred came up with a few questions off the top of his head.

"I'm 26, I come from London, England, I like to read, I would like to be a writer and my favorite color is green," Arthur rapidly answered. "Are you satisfied?"

"No!" Arthur looked at Alfred with a slightly agitated look. "Now you're supposed to ask me!"

Arthur sighed heavily. "Fine, you can go answer those questions yourself."

Alfred smiled for a moment before answering. "See? Was that so hard? I'm 22, I'm from Washington, the USA, I like playing video games, I wanna be someone who can change the world and I can't choose between red and blue."

"What exactly was the point of that?" Arthur asked.

"Well, we got to know each other a little more, didn't we? That's a start, right?" Alfred answered.

Arthur shrugged. He couldn't deny that. "I suppose so."

The clock in the bar struck eight while Alfred and Arthur were in the middle of an intense conversation about plants.

"But you see, it's just that flowers don't-" the clock loudly interrupted Arthur. "Oh, well, it seems that my shift is over. I'll be right back." Arthur walked through a door that was behind the bar and came out wearing a coat and missing an apron that Alfred didn't even notice Arthur was wearing.

"Alright, then, I'm guessing you're leaving now. See ya," Alfred watched Arthur unhook a latch, walk out of the bar, hook the latch back on and wave to Alfred on his way out.

That was usually how the rest of Alfred and Arthur's encounters went. Alfred would come in and start up a conversation that would lead to the weirdest of things, then Arthur would leave. Of course, there were some rule breakers, and one in particular.

Alfred trudged into the bar and sat down at his usual spot. "Hey, Arthur," he said half-heartedly.

"What's wrong? No getting my name wrong? No 'dude, guess what I did today'?" Arthur put on an extremely bad imitation of Alfred's accent.

"Nah, just not feeling it. Hey, Artie?" Alfred glanced up at Arthur.

"It's Arthur, and yes?" Arthur started pouring out drinks for Alfred's friends; it was routine now.

"Have you ever... Well… Liked somebody? As in, liked somebody that you _knew _you couldn't get?" Alfred felt a little more than weird asking.

The question took Arthur back a little bit. As much as they talked, they never really talked about each other's love life. If anything, they tried to avoid the subject. The extent of their knowledge was that they knew that the other was single and that's about it. "I-I guess…"

"Then how do you deal with it?" Alfred said, putting his head in a hand.

"I… I'm not quite sure. I suppose I just try to ignore it and… And just ignore them, I suppose that's it," Arthur had no real answer. "Why, having trouble in paradise?"

Alfred smirked up at Arthur for a moment. "I'd hardly call my life paradise, but, yeah, I guess I got some problems."

A little time passed. "Well, go ahead, talk."

Alfred looked up at Arthur with a look like said something along the lines of 'are-you-crazy?'. "Really? You want me to talk about my problems when I've never even heard yours?"

"Well that's what you would usually do, and I've told you how I deal with unwanted feelings," Arthur huffed.

"Sure, fine. Well, this guy I like," Arthur mentally noted it was a guy, Alfred didn't seem to notice the slip-up, "he's really cool. I see him a lot, and I guess that's probably how it all started. We talk a lot, and he's pretty nice to me most of the time. I just…" Alfred sighed. "He's a pretty good friend, too, so if he doesn't like me back, I just really don't want things to get awkward between us."

Arthur frowned. "You're not usually this serious about things, something must be wrong."

"Eh, just… Never mind, so did you do anything today?" Alfred shook his head and tried to change the subject.

"No, no, no, this is a bar," Arthur shook his head and planted his palms on the bar in front of Alfred, "I'm sure you've gathered that, you're not _that_, stupid, are you? Either way, at a bar you're meant to drink out your sorrows and talk to the bartender, since drinking is out of the question for you, talk to me."

Alfred furrowed his eyebrows and half glared at Arthur, he didn't really have the heart to produce a full out glare at him. "Look, I just don't wanna talk about, okay?"

"Well you're not gonna get any better if you don't talk about, so you can just sit there moping in your own puddle of misery while I actually work," Arthur turned his back on Alfred and starter pulling out more glasses and bottles.

After a few minutes, Alfred, with his head in his arms crossed on the table, finally spoke. "Hey, Artie?"

"It's Arthur, but yes?" Arthur glanced back at Alfred.

"You get off work at seven, right? Well, um…" Alfred went over what he was going to say over and over in his head really quick. He actually _thought_ before he _spoke_, for once. "Some of my friends and I are going to be going out to a dinner, and since one of them cancelled, would you wanna take their place?"

"A dinner, you say? Where?" Arthur turned his full attention back to Alfred.

"This Italian place just down the street, I've been there before, it's pretty cool," Alfred explained, looking up at Arthur.

"Oh, well that sound acceptable, when is it?" Arthur asked.

"Next Friday, so, are you coming?" Alfred picked his head back up.

"I suppose I could make it, but my house is a little too far, to go home and get ready, then come back to this street would take a little too long," Arthur sighed.

"Well I could just, like, pick you up or something, right? I've seen you go home, you walk, I can just drive you back! Plus, my friends know better than to go drinking when they're gonna go out later, so they won't be hammered, so I won't have to drive them back later! It'll be awesome!" Alfred said, getting excited.

Arthur thought about that for a second. "I suppose that could work."

"Awesome! Where do you live?" Alfred said, taking out his phone, opening a map app and handing Arthur the phone. "Mark it on here!"

Arthur fumbled with the phone for a little bit before saying: "Erm… Could you show me how? I'm not very experienced with newer technologies."

Alfred sighed, but smiled nonetheless. "Here, lemme show you," Alfred leaned over the table and Arthur did the same so they were shoulder to shoulder and both able to see the phone's screen. A few minutes later, and they had pinned a small house about a ten minute drive away from the bar.

"So, I'll drive you back, then come back at around six-fifty to pick you back up?" Alfred confirmed.

"I would prefer it if you arrived a little earlier than six-fifty, in case something happens, but, yes, that sounds acceptable," Arthur nodded his head.

"And remember, this is just a casual thing, so no suits," Alfred put his phone away.

Arthur stopped what he was doing. "What exactly is that supposed to mean?"

Alfred ginned. "Well, isn't that a thing? That when Brits aren't in uniform, they're wearing suits?"

"I… I hope you know I take offense to that. And why would I be wearing a suit to an informal dinner?" Arthur slowly asked.

"I don't know," Alfred shrugged. "I'm not sure what you Brits do in your spare time."

"What exactly is _that_ supposed to mean?!"Arthur yelled, and it was all Alfred could do to stop himself from laughing.

Eventually, the Friday Alfred had previously talked about rolled around, and Alfred kept true to his promise. When Arthur came out from behind the room behind the bar dressed in a coat, Alfred was already at the door holding it open for Arthur.

Alfred and Arthur climbed into Alfred's car, Alfred in the driver's seat, of course. Alfred's car was a simple Toyota, gray, but was still comfortable.

"I've always wanted to be able to drive a car, but with the pay I receive I can't really afford one," Arthur ghosted his hand on the dashboard and the seats. "But I suppose even if I had one, I wouldn't use it very much seeing as I walk mostly everywhere."

"Well, if you even wanna ride, just come find me, I'd be happy to give you one," Alfred bucked in his seatbelt, waited for Arthur to do the same, and started up the car. It wasn't a long drive to Arthur's house, and soon than expected, Alfred was already dropping Arthur off.

"Alright then, see ya at six-fifty? Six-forty?" Alfred watched Arthur climb out of his car and rolled down his window so he could still talk to Arthur.

"Of course, good-bye, Alfred," Arthur walked up to his front door, looked behind him and gave a quick wave to Alfred before he entered his house.

Alfred glanced at the time on his phone. Six-forty-three. Alfred tucked his phone away back in his pocket. He got out of his car and walked up to Arthur's door. Alfred hesitantly knocked on the door. He wasn't quite sure why he did it hesitantly, but he did anyways.

After a few moments of silence, Alfred finally heard a faint 'Come in!' from the inside. Alfred twisted the knob and of the plain brown door and walked himself in.

Arthur's home wasn't big, but it wasn't small either. It was probably one of those comfy family homes you would find advertised on TV. There was a corridor running down the middle leading to a set of stairs at the far end. The corridor lead into a living room and through the open door frame Alfred could see a TV turned on some news channel.

Alfred slowly strolled down through the corridor, but was soon stopped by the sound of footsteps above him. Then, Arthur appeared at the foot of the staircase wearing what looked like a beige dress shirt covered with a blue-gray long coat and matching dress pants topped off with polished black shoes.

Alfred looked Arthur up and down. He wanted to compliment him somehow but what came out instead was, "What'd I say about no suits?"

Arthur walked down the corridor towards Alfred saying, "At least it's better than some hoodie or whatever you call those things, _Alfred_, this is a dinner after all, one should look one's best. Or at least look decent." Arthur stopped right in front of Alfred.

"Jeez, _'one's'_? Man, Artie, where are you from, the eighteen-hundreds?" Alfred grinned.

"Git, it's Arthur. Are we leaving or not?" Arthur walked behind Alfred opening the door back up.

"Sure, whatever, c'mon, _Artie_," Alfred put extra emphasis on the nickname, only infuriating Arthur even more.

The dinner went fairly well, of course, five people sitting at a table was bound to cause a little chaos. Chaos meaning that Francis ordered drinks for everyone, Alfred declining, Arthur stating he was trying to keep up his sober streak, Francis beginning stripping and the other two making out.

As much as Arthur hated Francis when they first met, he couldn't stand seeing him without his shirt and so Arthur ordered Alfred to take him home which Alfred happily obliged. Maybe this would teach his friends about drinking, too.

The drive back to Arthur's place didn't take that long, and so they didn't really talk much. When they did get there, Arthur got out of the passenger's seat and walked up to the front door. Alfred followed.

As Arthur was getting his keys out of his pocket, he said, "You don't have to follow me, you know? I'm perfectly fine of walking a few meters by myself."

"Sure, but I thought I'd say bye or somethin', get it? I mean, we didn't really talk much in the car or whatever…" Alfred shrugged.

Arthur unlocked his door and swung it open. Right before he walked in, he turned back to Alfred. "Well, tonight was lovely aside from the last half. Thank you."

"Hey, no problem, you're welcome to hang with me and my friends whenever you like," Alfred grinned and slowly turned.

Arthur put a hand on Alfred's shoulder to stop him from leaving and turned Alfred back around to face him. "Oh, and one last thing before you leave tonight," Arthur stood on his toes and lightly kissed Alfred on the lips before shrinking back down and finding sudden interest in his feet and hands.

"Oh… Um…" Alfred lightly grazed his lips with his hands. "Um… What was that for?"

"T-that was for tonight…" Arthur stammered. A moment passed. Then another. Then Arthur looked back up at Alfred. "It doesn't have to mean anything, I'm sorry, I should leave."

Arthur tried to turn around, but Alfred placed his hands on Arthur's shoulders to stop him. Alfred grinned that signature grin he seemed to be doing a lot more recently. "No, I want it to mean something. A whole lotta something."

* * *

**I think I was drunk myself when I came up with this. And it just turned to crap when I started to write Alfred in Arthur's house. Please excuse the crappy -drunk-ness of this fic.**

**Also, on another note, what do you think of drinking? Well, of alcohol? I kinda like wine, but I prefer beer. It's... Fuzzier. I don't know how to describe it.**

**Anyways! Rate and review if it pleases you!**


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